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Monkey Business

For some reason, Larry Craig deciding to fight reminds me of Gary Hart deciding not to. I’m not the only one getting Gary Hart flashbacks off this, even though the scandals, the reactions, the stakes are entirely different. 

You’ll remember that amid rumors of extra marital affairs in 1987, Democratic presidential candidate Hart dared reporters to follow him. They did, and caught him in DC with Donna Rice. He denied everything, said it was innocent.  His wife came out and said the same thing.  Shortly after that the “Monkey Business” photos emerged.  It took a week.  

At the big press conference on May 8, 1987, Gary Hart came out, and started talking about how he had planned to make a short speech to announce he was quitting.  But in the middle of the night, he decided, hell no! 

It was late morning, deadline at the afternoon newspaper where I worked in Holyoke, Massachusetts, as we watched Hart on TV saying that. My buddy Rob Crowley was furiously typing away to get it in, and I said, “He’s going to fight it! I can’t believe it!” Something like that. I was thrilled. Hart was going to put on a show. The plane was in flames, and instead of bailing out gracefully, Hart was going to struggle doggedly at the controls. Maybe, just maybe, he’d manage to pull it up. That, or slam it into the hillside. Big explosion.  

He messed us up a little on deadline. I’m pretty sure just about everyone else watching that crappy speech thought the same thing we did. Crowley started typing about how a defiant Hart was staying in the race.  Hart launched into his still somewhat famous attack on the press.  No real problem with that. It was a pretty sordid business from just about every angle.  His sneaking around and theirs. Nobody liked any of it. I thought there was a off-chance it might work for Hart, the press bashing.  But he knew, and his advisors knew, and so did just about everyone else, that no matter how disdainful middle America might be about sleazy reporters following someone around, middle America had no intention of voting for President Monkey Business with a floozy on his lap. 

So this was Hart’s tantrum. He railed on at some length.  Blah blah blah the press. Then, with that out of his system, he quit.

Crowley spat out an epithet. ”Asshole!” or “Goddamn it!” Something like that. Gary Hart was screwing with him on deadline. Crowley deleted his lede and started writing again.

It turned out, true to his word, Hart had adamantly, on noble principle, refused to make a short speech about his own moral failings and quit.  He made a really long speech about other people’s moral failings, and then quit.  It was an eye-opening moment for me early in my career. No great revelation, really: Never trust pols, particularly when their lips are moving. Pay close attention to detail and nuance, because their words will probably be literally true, so you must be prepared for creative interpretation. It depends what the meaning of is is. Short speech? Hell no! Long speech! Be prepared for absolutely anything.   

So what does this have to do with Larry Craig?  Allegedly peering into strange men’s stalls, tapping out signals, slipping his shoe up into the other guy’s stall, up against his shoe, waving his hand back and forth under the partition.  He started trailing smoke the minute the cop waved his badge back in reply, but it was his word against the cop’s and he might have pulled it off. It was the hoping it would go away part that did him in. He’s a guilty plea and a resignation letter too late. He’s doing Hart backwards, quitting and then fighting. Usually in a case like this, with the wings off the plane, it’s a just matter of waiting for it to hit the hillside.  But Craig isn’t running for president.  All he needs to do is keep denying everything and keep his seat through 2008, presumeably for the sake of the wife and kids, for the sake of deniability.  Could work, I suppose, maybe even if someone emerges from another stall in some other men’s room, and news reports suggest a fair chance of that, with rumblings of issues reportedly going back to the Gerry Studds congressional page affair.

I forgot, big similarity with Hart. He fought, quit, then tried to fight again. He came back in December of 1987, saying let the people decide.  They did.  No President Monkey Business. 

Also, instead of press-bashing, some people have actually bashed a cop who was just doing a dirty job … trying to clean up a public restroom.

But the Hart thing was different. I doubt he cared so much that people knew he was a womanizer, powerful man getting it on with young babes. He just wanted to be president, and when some snerk in New Hampshire said, “Do you think adultery is immoral,” and “Have you committed adultery,” it was messing up his game.  There were actually rumblings of a Hart comeback in 2004, and he’s floating around out there today as a third-tier elder statesman.

Craig’s got a more fundamental problem. What he’s trying to get past is being known as someone who comes on to strange men in bathroom stalls.  He just doesn’t want to be gay. As a national scandal, it really doesn’t have much bearing on anything. In the event of his failure, Idaho’s Republican governor will appoint another Republican. By next year, it’s forgotten. Except maybe in Idaho, the Craig household. There will be half a dozen other meaningless scandals and maybe one or two real ones under the bridge by then. Not much of a bloody anti-Republican shirt to wave with this one.  It’s interesting mainly as a political spectacle, human tragedy.  Dogfight, plane crash. 

Yesterday, the AP made it sound like Craig was definitely going to fight for it.  The latest is a little iffier. Craig has had Arlen Spector urging him to go for it … not to keen about fighting on in Iraq but an esteemed elder stateman in an sordid restroom scandal … that’s worth fighting for.  He’s also got lawyers telling him it wouldn’t hold up in court.  It’s a he said/ cop said. He’s been fighting rumors of same for nearly 30 years, he clearly doesn’t want to go down in second-rate Washington scandal history like this. 

Scandals ironically tend to move the goalpost a little.  In the wake of Hart and Clinton, adultery isn’t exactly acceptable, but Rudy Giuliani went in with a lot of baggage and is still very much in the fight, abortion and immigration and whether he was a 9/11 hero or not getting more ink than a messy divorce. So who knows, maybe we’ll find in 20 years this Craig thing will have, in some small way, helped to normalize sordid trysts with strangers in bathroom stalls. 

Like I said, you have to be prepared for anything. 

Related: 

“Taliban of Tolerance.” Matt Sanchez, co-star of the high-end fantasy film Tijuana Toilet Tramps, goes GWOT on gay jihad for the right to have sex in public. I’m not sure if “Sen. Craig Johnson” was on purpose or not … never mind, he’s fixed that now. 

Topics: pols, sex

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:03 am on Thursday, September 6, 2007

8 Responses to “Monkey Business”

1. Banjo Says:
   September 6th, 2007 at 9:10 am

   As in the Mark Foley case, the local media knew all about it but chose not to run a story about his gayness. In the former case, my guess is the guilty party was our old friend, political correctness. In the latter, I somehow think the Mormon church kept the lid on. As off the wall as it sounds, no important political decision in Idaho gets made with the agreement of top Mormons. They must have known, just as the Idaho Statesman did. The newspaper’s so-called eight-month investigation would have remained in a drawer if Roll Call hadn’t busted the story.

2. The Jawa Report Says:
   September 6th, 2007 at 9:26 am

   Former Gay Porn Star on Toilet Sex + Gary Hart

   I’m trying to avoid the Larry Craig story like a Tijuana toilet tramp. Speaking of Tijuana Toilet Tramp, here’s former gay porn actor Matt Sanchez on Larry Craig:For homosexuals, cruising is a sacred pastime right up there with re-runs of…

3. The Thunder Run Says:
   September 6th, 2007 at 11:14 am

   Web Reconnaissance for 09/06/2007

   A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.

4. rightwingprof Says:
   September 6th, 2007 at 1:22 pm

   I’m not moralizing — I don’t know Craig, I don’t know exactly what happened, and that’s not the issue. The sound you hear is the impending Democrat landslide in 08 across the US. There may in fact be nothing to these charges (though why did he plead guilty), and he may, in fact, have done nothing wrong, but all this does is pile more logs on the party of corruption bonfire. And to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure I want somebody who’s so stupid he’d take advice from Snarlin Arlen in office.

5. RebeccaH Says:
   September 6th, 2007 at 1:58 pm

   Once thing’s for sure. We’ll never lack for entertainment as long as there are politicians.

6. Vanguard of the Commentariat Says:
   September 6th, 2007 at 2:20 pm

   This guy is making $160K a year, plus what he gets on the side. It would be hilarious if we all weren’t having to pay through the nose for it. While realistically we have to let this default to low comedy, I prefer to take my entertainment on my own terms.

7. saltydog Says:
   September 6th, 2007 at 4:42 pm

   Yeah, VofC. I agree. And it isn’t just his salary as a Congressman, but a life-long pension for the privilege of laying down to law for the payers.

   I don’t expect perfection (a childish standard), but I do expect a certain level of integrity. That this is also considered childish is an indictment against a society that has grown too cynical for its good.

8. tanstaafl Says:
   September 6th, 2007 at 6:06 pm

   Garry Hart was ( is) a grade A dweeb.

   Larry Craigadmitted to a misdemeanor and then wanted to withdraw his guilty plea.

   Then, he wanted (wants) to withdraw his resignation from the Senate.

   He reminds me of John F’n who was for virtually whatever before he was against it.

   Give it up, Larry, go home.

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